Elevate Bay passes 400 classroom mentors, seeks more

“I think the kids really like having someone coming in and taking an interest in them,” mentor Katie Frewin said.

ERYN DION News Herald Reporter @PCNHErynDion

PANAMA CITY — One of the students in De’Andriea Etheridge’s fourth-grade class was not having a good day.

Deflated, the Patterson Elementary student hung his head at his desk, not paying attention to the lively classroom discussion about the area and perimeter of a rectangle.

That is, until Katie Frewin, the classroom’s Elevate Bay mentor, took notice. Taking a seat in chairs clearly designed for elementary school students, Frewin started helping the student with his work, also trying to talk him out of his funk. Behind her, Etheridge continued to lead the rest of the class through the problems. In front of her, the student began to perk back up.

“I think the kids really like having someone coming in and taking an interest in them,” Frewin said. “I’m not a teacher. They laughed at me at first, because I didn’t know how to do the math. They taught me.”

Frewin, along with other Elevate Bay mentors, gives about an hour a week to students. The program, which hopes to put 1,000 mentors in the district’s elementary schools by the end of the school year, has about 408 mentors from the community signed up, and Stacey Legg, the district’s mentor coordinator, said some local business and organizations have committed their entire staff to the cause.

The program is flexible, and mentors can work either one-on-one with students or cover a whole classroom. Etheridge said she has about four mentors who work in her class, some who look after the whole classroom and some who work with students.

“I really appreciate having the mentors,” she said. “It’s given the kids something to work toward.”

The students crave adult attention, she said, and having someone in the classroom who isn’t a teacher, who isn’t expecting them to act a certain way or do certain things for class, has made a difference both in their attitudes and in their classroom performance.

“One of my kids, that might have had some issues, he thrives whenever his mentor would come,” Etheridge said. “His mentor brought him a book one day, and he read the whole book that day.”

Frewin said she wanted to become a mentor because she wanted to invest in the community, even if it meant having to brush up on her math skills. It’s important, she said, for people from all walks of life to come in and set an example for these students.

“If you have an hour a week where you go out to lunch or spend time with someone, this is the best way to do it,” she said. “I’d rather be here than out to lunch or doing something. These kids, they crave this positive attention.”

Anyone who wishes to become a mentor with Elevate Bay can get in contact with Legg at Leggsl@bay.k12.fl.us or 850-767-4128.

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